My big adventure
"The first time I traveled, in spite of all the warnings I went to Jamaica.
I was in Kingston with a friend one night, watching an American movie, called “Cocktail” I remembered it had been shot in Jamaica, so I decided to go there the next day: Monkey Island.
The bus station down town, was quite an experience, no platforms, none to ask for information, and buses crowded with people eating fried chicken, and luggage an live chickens on the roof.
The bus headed to Port Antonio, from where you can reach Monkey Island.
I took about 3 hours to get there, and a ride through the jungle, mountains on the left and cliffs on the right. Me, my friend and a British guy, were the only white people on the bus, so we got kids curiosity, while they talked Patoise ( a dialect a lot of people speak in Jamaica)
We arrived and found accommodation. Probably not the place most tourists would stay, but we just needed bed to sleep, and it was safe. We met two guys who showed us around, just for the price of a good conversation.
The next day, we headed to the beach to take a small boat, and arrived to the our destination. It was a bit disappointing, way smaller than in the movie, and though beautiful it was very touristic, with people looking at the beach from a swimming pool, but my curiosity about the place was satisfied.
The bus was supposed to leave at 7pm, but by the time we were back in town there it was gone and there was no way to go back to Kingston and we didn't have money for another night at the inn. We decided to spend the night wandering the town.
We ended up on a street market we'd been earlier that day, and went back to talk to Robert, a guy who was selling his craft there.
In the conversation our situation came up, so he offered his house, we hesitated a bit but accepted.
We went to his house, it was one single room, with no electricity, surrounded by lots of vegetation.
We sat outside, he got us some orange juice and cookies, and he told us all kinds of stories about his time in Germany, and the simple life in Port Antonio he had came to love.
We talked for hours at the light of candles, and learned a lot about Jamaica and its people. Then we fall aslee.
We woke up at 4am, and Robert was deeply asleep and we had to leave. We didn't want to wake him up, and sadly there was no way to leave a note ( emails weren't usual back then). So we left, to catch a van which transported workers to Kingston.
He must have thought we'd been a dream , I hope Robert Hudson knew how grateful we were to him and that I 'll never forget him."
